For anyone who has lost a loved one, the holidays can be an enormous hill to climb. For me, I find myself faking my way through it – being mindful not to show my kids that my heart is broken every year. I want it to be over quickly and at one point during Christmas Day, I retreat to my bed for a cry. Seeing her stocking over our fireplace always reminds me that we still have one missing, and she should be coming home from college any day. College has always been a big life moment that was taken from her, and taken from me as well.

But last week, we all got the college moment we have been waiting for. 

Anyone involved in ISF knows Grant. You watched him comfort her during her journey and then grow up without a big sister. You met him officially for the first time when he spoke at one of our annual coffee events with Greg Olsen and Emily Maynard in 2017, and he has become one of the faces of this organization ever since. As I watched him speak at our gala in March, walking up with confidence most 18-year-old boys don’t possess, with his black suit, sunglasses and hair on point, he once again brought you all to your feet as he told you about his sister. That night, we raised more money than we ever have in the history of ISF.

I have watched Grant become someone much older than his actual age over the years. He has this innate desire to be at every event we host, to talk to donors and doctors and to connect with kids battling cancer. He seems to impress everyone he meets, and he reminds me a little bit of a game show host at times. Sometimes, I sit back wondering if he will find himself, like me, always feeling like life is just a little less because she is not here.

This fall, we found ourselves in the dreaded college application process. Once everything was submitted in November, I started to lose sleep. I knew Grant was shooting for the moon with these schools, which I encouraged – and sadly, none of them were close to home. His dream was to attend the University of Miami in Florida, majoring in Political Science, hoping to attend law school. If you’ve seen him speak, you know this is what he was born to do, and being in South Beach, unfortunately, fit as well (insert motherly eye-roll).

He would tell me he wants to go somewhere where he can meet people from all over the world – no one from Charlotte, he would say. Not many kids wish for this, but this is a kid I could drop anywhere, and he always seemed to figure it out. I was scared for him, and the thought of having him so far away made my heart ache, too. The thought of him being rejected and I couldn’t do anything to save him scared the life out of me. I couldn’t protect him for once. The acceptance rates at these schools are so low, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason for getting in anymore.

And then it happened. (click to watch)

Seeing happiness in your kids is the best gift in the world for a parent. I have never experienced such joy in my whole life.. Which I know sounds crazy. But for some reason, I feel like a cloud has followed our family, and it just hangs over us. We can’t escape it. I hoped he would be rewarded for taking this tragedy in his life and turning it into something meaningful. 

All those times he got on stage and spoke to strangers, the times he spent at Camp Care with these kids – seeing that cancer and death can be beautiful if you figure out how to see it as a gift. Losing Isabella made him into someone he maybe never would have become and it has been amazing to watch.

Grant wrote his college essay about this very topic. Not about losing her, but how it changed him – how it made him a better person by teaching him empathy and resilience and how her legacy will forever motivate him to be a voice for those who don’t have one. Her death gave him life skills, and he intends to use them.

I find myself sitting here, looking at her stocking and wondering if she had anything to do with this. Wondering if she did this for him and for me. Finally, a holiday where I find myself crying in a good way. I haven’t had one of those in a long time. I know her hand was in this.

This is going to be one great Christmas.

— Erin Santos-Primis, Executive Director & Isabella’s Mom